Joint Labor Committee Meets in Casper
In their last scheduled meeting before the Budget Session, the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee met in Casper to finalize their package of sponsored bills. The final bill that they considered was a measure authorizing funds for Hospital Improvement Grants. As the bill currently stands, $750,000 would be available for up to three grants of $250,000 apiece for hospitals that are interested in pursuing Magnet Hospital designation. An additional $200,000 will also be made available for Critical Access Hospitals to promote quality nursing practices, quality nursing working environments, increased retention of nursing staff and demonstrated improved outcomes for patients. The Department of Health is given the responsibility to write rules and regulations governing the programs. WHA provided testimony on the bill, indicating that we would prefer that if not all of the $750,000 were used by hospitals pursuing Magnet designation, the remaining funds could be transferred to the second program. Additionally, we spoke in favor of expanding the eligibility for the second portion of the program beyond CAH's, enabling all the hospitals to participate in this voluntary effort. The bill's author, Senator Mike Massie, indicated his willingness to consider appropriate amendments if the bill is successful in being introduced. The Committee also heard a report from Cheryl Koski, administrator of the state Board of Nursing. Ms. Koski discussed nursing shortage projections, telling the panel that by the year 2020, Wyoming is projected to have the worst nursing shortage in the nation, with a 63% shortfall. WHA also provided comments on this topic, and encouraged them to devote some of their interim work to seek a solution to this problem, specifically focusing on improving the Board of Nursing's licensing and application procedure, as well as increasing the efficiency of background checks.

WyHIO Bill (Health Care Information Technology)
Last week's issue of Newsbriefs previewed legislation that would create an Electronic Health Records Network in Wyoming . This second in a series about the legislation will explain why Wyoming needs an Electronic Health Records Network (EHRN).

Patient Care - Fragmented, disorganized, inaccessible clinical information can delay the timely treatment of patients, adversely impacting the quality of health care and compromising patient safety. Technology used to collect, store, retrieve and transfer health information electronically is one promising solution to this problem. Financial, technical, cultural and legal factors have been identified as barriers to adoption of health information technology. The Health Care Information Technology Bill is proposed as a means to facilitate overcoming at least the financial and technical barriers to implementation of an Electronic Health Records Network.

Public Interest - A recent study including t he Kaiser Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health indicated that the public is interested in an EHRN for the following reasons: 1) Coordination among different health professionals they see is a problem. 2) Healthcare professionals do not always have all their medical information. 3) Patients had to wait or come back for another appointment because their provider did not have all their medical information. An Electronic Health Records Network has great potential for minimizing these public concerns.

Cost Savings - Healthcare providers and organizations continue to be pressured to reduce costs. In studies throughout the country where Electronic Health Records have been implemented, cost savings have been identified by reducing hospital length of stays, reducing drug expenditures, improving utilization of radiology tests, better capturing of charges and decreasing billing errors.

Subsequent issues of Newsbriefs will explain the bill further, how funding will be distributed and how to support this legislation.

Wages and Benefits in Wyoming Publication
The Department of Employment's Research & Planning Section produces the “Wages and Benefits in Wyoming” publication, designed to provide a complete picture of total compensation in Wyoming by combining data from two surveys, the Occupational Employment Statistics Wage Survey, which contains occupational employment and wage information collected via survey from Wyoming employers and the Employee Benefits Survey, which collects data on employer provided benefits. Understanding how wages and benefits interact to produce total compensation provides insight into how firms can use wages and benefit packages to recruit, retain, and reward their employees. A lower wage or salary may be offset by a more generous benefit package. For more information about Occupational Employment Statistics or to request the complete publication, “Wages and Benefits in Wyoming,” visit their website at http://doe.state.wy.us/LMI/OES_toc.htm or call 307-473-3807.

Wyoming Risk Management Services
Risk Management (RM) offers free services to all Wyoming Workers' Compensation policyholders. This is an amazing opportunity for companies to get free Risk Management consultation and learn more about how their premiums are driven by injury costs. There are three free Risk Management services offered: 1) Loss Run Reports, detailed reports that list Workers' Compensation claims for your company; 2) On-site Risk Management Analysis presentation, incorporating company specific WC data and demonstrating how premiums are affected by injury costs (approximately one hour in your offices); and 3) Safety Discount Program with a potential to save up to 10% off your Workers' Compensation premium base rate. To learn more about the free Risk Management Services call Claudine Schilke at 307-777-3452 or Don Ashley at 307-777-5961, or visit http://doe.state.wy.us/osha.

Medicare Prescription Drug Program Weekly Provider Conference Calls
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are hosting weekly conference calls on Provider Part D issues. These calls will be scheduled every Tuesday from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EST, and started on January 3, 2006. Each call will be a 60 minute conference to enable discussions of issues and resolutions involving the Part D program. Attendees are encouraged to use this time to ask questions and describe problems so that CMS can continue to improve to Part D program. To participate in any of these calls, dial the conference phone number 1-800-619-2457 and reference the password “RBDML.”